Diamond observations
posted by David Cloninger, 3/22/2009 09:16:00 PM
With no hands on the wheel.”
-------------- HOOTIE AND THE BLOWFISH
Was it a case of South Carolina not being that good or No. 6 LSU being every bit as good as advertised?
I think it’s a little bit of both.
But regardless of the answer, it’s way too early to put a label on the 2009 season.
I’m not going to sit here and say the Gamecocks are getting jobbed by biased umpires or bad weather or a tough schedule. Those are excuses, and I’ll follow Ray Tanner’s standard line of, “Hey, got to win anyway.”
The fact is, they play in the SEC, which is a World Series-like atmosphere every weekend, and they’re going to lose some games. Four of the Gamecocks’ six drops are to conference teams.
It is distressing, losing the first two conference series, but it’s not debilitating. Checking back through Tanner’s history at USC, I see three other teams that dropped their first two series.
Two of them wound up in the College World Series (2003, 2004) and the other won 41 games and got within one game of a Super Regional (2005).
Of course, the lemmings of Gamecock nation are quick to criticize or point out the obvious flaws, and there are a few. As I thought before the season, this team is young and is learning on the fly. USC doesn’t have a lot of experience or returning talent and it’s having to find answers as the season goes on.
The hitters are going through streaks, as all hitters do, and are trying to be more consistent. The pitchers, outside of ace Sam Dyson, are doing the same as Tanner tries to find his best weekend guys, his next-best guys for midweek and the best options to use when it’s 3-2 in the eighth and he needs a strikeout.
A team like LSU is going to feast on any deficiency the opponent has, and man, did it. Nolan Belcher pitched a beauty of a game for three innings, one mistake got blasted over the fence and the Tigers followed by saying, “Oh yeah, we’re the preseason league champs.”
Bing, bang, boom, ballgame.
But as the Gamecocks were blistered in the final two games of the series, Tanner didn’t offer any excuses. It’s why I love the way the guy coaches – he never offers excuses, because he knows if he does, his team will think it’s OK.
He didn’t blame the losses on youth or inexperience and he didn’t bemoan the backbone of last year’s team breaking the bank in the majors. It hurts to lose, but a loss is not caused by an excuse – it’s caused because you didn’t do enough to win.
“We realize some of those guys are young, but you also have to produce,” he said on Sunday. “We’ve just got to get better.”
Tough love, baby, and it’s hard to argue with the previous results.
I’m reminded of the situation facing USC’s basketball team this year. Everybody knew depth would be an issue, but it was one of those unspoken fears – if an injury doesn’t happen, no big deal.
It did happen, a few times, and the Gamecocks still fought through it to win 21 of 30 games.
Same thing on the diamond. Everybody knew losing all that talent was going to hurt, but nobody knew how the newbies would respond. So far, they’ve won 14 of 20. Although losing four of the first six conference games isn’t pretty, the Gamecocks have a lot of time to turn it around.
As mentioned before, it’s not a strange predicament to be oh-for-their-first-two series. These guys know as well as their predecessors that there are eight SEC series – 24 games – to play.
The young guys will get older and the inexperienced guys will get playing time. A 10-game winning streak could be just around the corner.
If it’s not, then Tanner will try to find another solution. He’s always done it before.
Even though this year hasn’t started off to his standards, it’s not the beginning everybody’s going to remember.
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“It’s like driving down the middle of the road
With no hands on the wheel.”
-------------- HOOTIE AND THE BLOWFISH
Was it a case of South Carolina not being that good or No. 6 LSU being every bit as good as advertised?
I think it’s a little bit of both.
But regardless of the answer, it’s way too early to put a label on the 2009 season.
I’m not going to sit here and say the Gamecocks are getting jobbed by biased umpires or bad weather or a tough schedule. Those are excuses, and I’ll follow Ray Tanner’s standard line of, “Hey, got to win anyway.”
The fact is, they play in the SEC, which is a World Series-like atmosphere every weekend, and they’re going to lose some games. Four of the Gamecocks’ six drops are to conference teams.
It is distressing, losing the first two conference series, but it’s not debilitating. Checking back through Tanner’s history at USC, I see three other teams that dropped their first two series.
Two of them wound up in the College World Series (2003, 2004) and the other won 41 games and got within one game of a Super Regional (2005).
Of course, the lemmings of Gamecock nation are quick to criticize or point out the obvious flaws, and there are a few. As I thought before the season, this team is young and is learning on the fly. USC doesn’t have a lot of experience or returning talent and it’s having to find answers as the season goes on.
The hitters are going through streaks, as all hitters do, and are trying to be more consistent. The pitchers, outside of ace Sam Dyson, are doing the same as Tanner tries to find his best weekend guys, his next-best guys for midweek and the best options to use when it’s 3-2 in the eighth and he needs a strikeout.
A team like LSU is going to feast on any deficiency the opponent has, and man, did it. Nolan Belcher pitched a beauty of a game for three innings, one mistake got blasted over the fence and the Tigers followed by saying, “Oh yeah, we’re the preseason league champs.”
Bing, bang, boom, ballgame.
But as the Gamecocks were blistered in the final two games of the series, Tanner didn’t offer any excuses. It’s why I love the way the guy coaches – he never offers excuses, because he knows if he does, his team will think it’s OK.
He didn’t blame the losses on youth or inexperience and he didn’t bemoan the backbone of last year’s team breaking the bank in the majors. It hurts to lose, but a loss is not caused by an excuse – it’s caused because you didn’t do enough to win.
“We realize some of those guys are young, but you also have to produce,” he said on Sunday. “We’ve just got to get better.”
Tough love, baby, and it’s hard to argue with the previous results.
I’m reminded of the situation facing USC’s basketball team this year. Everybody knew depth would be an issue, but it was one of those unspoken fears – if an injury doesn’t happen, no big deal.
It did happen, a few times, and the Gamecocks still fought through it to win 21 of 30 games.
Same thing on the diamond. Everybody knew losing all that talent was going to hurt, but nobody knew how the newbies would respond. So far, they’ve won 14 of 20. Although losing four of the first six conference games isn’t pretty, the Gamecocks have a lot of time to turn it around.
As mentioned before, it’s not a strange predicament to be oh-for-their-first-two series. These guys know as well as their predecessors that there are eight SEC series – 24 games – to play.
The young guys will get older and the inexperienced guys will get playing time. A 10-game winning streak could be just around the corner.
If it’s not, then Tanner will try to find another solution. He’s always done it before.
Even though this year hasn’t started off to his standards, it’s not the beginning everybody’s going to remember.
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David Cloninger. David is a full-time staff writer for GamecockCentral, and covers Gamecock football, men's basketball, baseball and recruiting. He may be reached by email at david(at)gamecockcentral.com. Replace (at) with @.